


The Curse of meaningless words

by 5972OltonHall



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Duelling, Gen, Post-War, new wordless spell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:20:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22557781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5972OltonHall/pseuds/5972OltonHall
Summary: After the war, and the inevitable societal changes it had left in its’ wake, Dean Thomas like many other wizards was struggling to find a new role. The professional duelling circuit at least offered him a way of bringing in some income.
Kudos: 3





	The Curse of meaningless words

After the war, and the inevitable societal changes it had left in its’ wake, Dean Thomas like many other wizards was struggling to find a new role. The professional duelling circuit at least offered him a way of bringing in some income. He’d hoped his wartime experience on air with the underground radio station, Potter Watch, would have got him into post-war, mainstream, broadcasting, but that was not to be. The Potter Watch crew had been officially regarded as dangerously rebellious, they may have been on the winning side, but the establishment had quickly closed ranks. The post-war vacancies in the mainstream wizarding media all went to junior members of the traditional elite. For many who’d been active against Voldemort and his followers it felt as if they’d fought parts of the war for nothing.

Attitudes at Hogwarts had softened as a result of the war, but elsewhere too many of the old guardians just wanted things to return to the way they had been. Despite many of the hardline, militant, extremists having been killed in the fighting, or subsequently arrested and punished (either executed or packed off to Askaban) the genii was now out of the bottle. Even after those in the Ministry who’d only played minor roles openly in favour of Voldemort had also been quietly asked to resign, little had really changed. Voldemort had initially thrived by pandering to the concept of blood supremacy; amongst the elite families, despite the war and its horrors, that remained a deeply entrenched concept. For a muggle-born, or half-blood, to rise to the top was still the exception; many of the purebloods in their entrenched positions of power still regarded as a potential maverick anyone who wasn’t of their kin. Employ one of them, no thank you. Hermione Granger may have swept into power at the Ministry on a wave of popularism but outside that small channel of influence it was still invariably who you knew, or perhaps what secrets it was suspected you knew from the war years, that got you into the top jobs.

We join Dean on this particular Friday evening in the function room deep in the stands at the Portree Scottish National quidditch stadium trying to hustle a slice of the prize money in the Scottish Open duelling contest. So here he was, semi-finalist, walking out to face a protagonist from his school days and, if anything, she was in a worse place socially than he was. The applause, as the Compare introduced them, seemed equal, and Dean felt that at least the crowd here were unbiased. Despite his English accent he wasn’t feeling any pressures from being the incomer here, he had to admit that in this way at least the wizardarding world was a bit more forgiving than the muggle equivalent he’d grown up in as a boy. Briefly thinking of the reception he would have got as an English contender, were this an equivalent muggle darts tournament at Hampden Park, he shuddered momentarily. 

In the designated area, as he readied himself for the first leg he felt unexpectedly nervous, he shouldn’t, he’d faced off against better opponents than Pansy Parkinson on the way to this round, but she was a Slytheryn. Given that cunning and deceit were an essential part of the Slytheryn ethic, was this finally the place to try out his newly developed curse?

He easily won the first of the three legs, why Pansy had decided to wear heels he’d no idea, perhaps the vanity she’d displayed at school was still an essential part of her psyche. Dean thought that she did look smart in her short black skirt and crisp white blouse whereas he was in his replica West Ham shirt and faded jeans. He guessed that with her slightly racy attire she was hoping to influence the male judges her way if the decision on any point was marginal. However, he felt comfortable and unhampered, and for Pansy her dress choice was soon to prove a mistake. Whatever the reason had been for her sartorial choice, as she dodged one of Dean’s curses she stumbled as her heel height left her off balance. Dean got in quickly as she was momentarily distracted, his follow up _expelliarmus_ winning him the leg.

Pansy was a clever opponent though and, after a lengthy series of curses and counter curses as they circled and dodged through the second leg of the contest, she got the equalizing break. By use of her Slytheryn cunning she deliberately bounced a _levio-corpus_ off the mirror behind the bar whilst Dean was still ducking under her prior _body-bind_ attempt.

The third leg was going the same way with the pair matching each other move for move. Dean was surprised at how well Pansy was doing and after nearly getting caught again with one of her unusual moves he fired his newly developed, and silently fire-able curse, _schuffletext_ _ **[i]**_ _._ Never having faced it before Pansy failed to react, given it was one of the few curses Dean had learnt to do wordlessly there was nothing in his wand movement to give her a clue that he’d delivered the spell before the blue light ran from his wand. Despite her continuing movement across the room Dean had judged the delivery angle correctly, the spell connected, hitting her solidly in the right thigh.

Nothing seemed to happen and what had been a cheer from the assembled crowd turned to a groan as it looked like Dean had fired a blank. Then Pansy aimed one of her own, nothing happened, the wand movement she’d made had been obvious to the crowd but they could also hear the odd sounding “ _Piffle Poodle”_ that had escaped her lips as her wand failed to display any light. The crowd could sense her anxiety as she desperately flicked her wand again, and then again, in a desperate attempt to land a spell, any spell. The judges, and the skilled practitioners in the crowd, could clearly see that Pansy’s wand movements were attempting an _expelliarmus_ but “ _spaghetti cornflakes_ ” was what escaped her lips. Knowing he’d bested her Pansy accepted Dean’s own offered hand to end the contest, and he ended the placed curse with his concluding _finite incantatum._

The crowd had been briefly stunned into silence by what they’d just seen but now thunderous applause rang out as they cheered Dean’s victory. Neither they, nor Pansy, had any idea, how Dean had won it, but won it in fine style he had. As for Dean he was glad that his muggle upbringing had inspired this bit of cross-over magic, adopting the muggle idea of secure message scrambling into a new curse for his duelling armoury; a curse to scramble whatever thought an opponent has into a string of meaningless words, thereby disabling their ability to actually cast the spell correctly. He’d never tried it in combat before, that it had worked so well the pay-off for his endless hours of practice – this was not one he was going to willingly share.

[i] Due to the origins of the spell components to get this to work correctly Dean needed to think of this as if he were saying it with a Dutch accent.


End file.
